JERUSALEM, Israel – In a pattern that has almost become routine, Palestinian groups fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip early Thursday, in retaliation for a raid by Israeli security forces Wednesday in the West Bank city of Nablus (biblical Shechem).
Palestinian health authorities say 10 Palestinians were killed in the raid and scores were wounded.
Israel retaliated for the rocket fire by bombing a weapons manufacturing factory in Gaza, along with a naval weapons compound.
Israel Defense Forces issued a statement Thursday saying in part, “This strike significantly harms the capabilities and prevents further weapon acquisition capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip and specifically in the maritime zone. The statement went on to accuse Hamas of placing weapons storage facilities among the civilian population in Gaza, making it more likely that innocent people would be casualties in the conflict.
Most of the rockets fired from Gaza Thursday were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Another rocket landed harmlessly in a field, but the sirens continue to be a major disruption in Israeli population centers near the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces were met with gunfire when they conducted Wednesday’s Nablus raid, looking for three members of the terror group Lion’s Den, suspected of killing 21-year-old Israeli soldier Ido Baruch last October. The three suspects were among the Palestinian dead.
Video of a Palestinian security vehicle fleeing the scene in Nablus angered many Palestinians who believe that President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority has continued cooperating with Israel on security operations, despite claims that those efforts ceased.
Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, writing in The Jerusalem Post Thursday, called the growing dissatisfaction with Palestinian Authority leaders “good news for Hamas.”
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